From Backpack to Handheld: The Recent Trajectory of Personal Location Aware Spatial Audio

Abstract

Personal location-sensitive spatial audio describes an electronic medium within the concept of locative (audio) media, inclusive of the physically realistic medium of audio augmented reality. These concepts describe both systems and the particular forms of resultant media in which a mobile user of the system receives audio content relative to their location in the world. Since the early 1990s, various projects have been created based on such ideas, and since then, advancement of the technology has taken the inevitable route of miniaturisation, integration and convergence with other mobile audio communication technologies. Early systems were implemented using backpacks or roll-around cases to hold components, while current systems tend to use hand-held computing devices. This progression has arrived at a point where the medium can come closer to fully realising its full potential, however, successful implementations now rely on perceptual optimisation and creative application of the technology.